Sunday, September 6, 2009

Android Book Mobile (1 week later)

It's been a great first week for ABM on the market. Over 1,400 downloads and still carrying a 4 star rating! Here is a screen shot of the Android Market -- Developer Console. It shows all the applications you have published with their current stats.One statistic that would be great if I knew how often people are using it. If I had my own server-side to the application I could gather that statistic myself. But alas, the data being stored at books.google.com, and the reviews coming from goodreads.com, I don't know how much they are using it. I fully expect someone will tell me their phone ran out of memory trying to load their full library.

I second a manual ISBN! I have a few books that are novelty-type covers (such as White Wolf's Silver Record, which is leather-like bound with a shiny silver barcode to scan) that my phone just won't scan.

Also, a way to export to the computer would be awesome...just a txt file or rtf would be awesome.

After you have authenticated into http://books.google.com you can export your library as xml. And yes, thank you for using it!

The UPC barcode problem is a symptom of a larger problem. I don't want to have to manually type the ISBN via the phone. I also have older paperbacks. As well as ISBNs that are not found at Google Books. I would rather integrate a looking up the book via either barcode. Then add it to the users library.

Love this app! I'd like to register another vote for being able to use the UPC_A barcode, but regardless I'm tickled with this! Any chance you'd be willing to publish your application code under a GPL or similar open license? I'd love to build onto your idea with an integration into http://BookMooch.com for those of us who trade books like crazy too.

I had not yet given up the idea of having enough time to devote to create a worth while $$ version of Book Mobile. I should have a decision in the next 3 months as other things are expected to come to fruition. Getting some manual ISBN entry is at the top of my short term list.

Regarding the "thats weird.." message that Nate gote. I don't suppose you are in a non-USA country? Kind of too bad I turned of ALL logging. shucks. I should have left that level of logging enabled.

James, no, I'm in the US. I haven't gotten the message again. What I am seeing though is that some barcodes can't get a match, yet searching Google Books for the ISBN comes up with the correct match. I'll try to get an example later today.